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the return of Chen Jiongming from the neighbouring province of Fujian. Chen was the Governor-General of Guangdong in 1912 and 1913. After the failed "Second Revolution" in 1913 against Yuan, he escaped to Malaysia (while Sun to Japan) and developed his own anti-Yuan organization independent of Sun's party in Japan. When the Canton Government was established in 1917, nominally under Sun Yat-sen, he returned to Canton only to find that the guest armies had real control over the province. As a result, he gathered a small troop of soldiers made up of native Cantonese and moved to Fujian in early 1918, where he strengthened its fighting potential. Chen Jiongming's return was financially supported by a group of Chinese bankers, who were affiliated with Liu Zhubo, in Hong Kong. They advanced to Chen Jiongming an amount of $200,000 and promised to pay the Guangxi troops a “give-way fee”, if the armies retreated to their home provinces. The fighting could not wait for bargains, as in late October Chen Jiongming's army had forced its way into Canton. The Guangxi guest armies obtained the "overdue army expenditure" through a different means. The guest armies retreated westward to Guangxi, looting all the way home.

The return of the Cantonese troops under Chen Jiongming was welcomed by the Cantonese. The atmosphere in Canton, as reviewed in the newspapers, was that Chen Jiongming should be the Provincial Governor. Funds for a new government were promised by the merchants.

At this juncture, on November 25, Sun Yat-sen and his key supporters left Shanghai and triumphantly returned to Canton. He prepared to assume power again. After all, Chen was Sun's subordinate in 1913 and 1917. The situation Sun found on his return to Canton was not to his liking. Sun was made Director and Minister of the Interior in the restored government. Wu Tingfang was made Minister of Foreign Affairs. But Chen Jiongming had been planning for the future in Canton, and his list of titles was impressive. Chen was the Minister of War, Governor of Guangdong, Commander in Chief of the Guangdong Army, and High Inspecting Commissioner of Guangdong and Guangxi. In January of 1921, Sun summoned all available parliamentarians to a meeting in Canton. There was no quorum, but they voted anyway. At the end, the Parliament elected Dr. Sun Provisional President of China. Chen Jiongming was in no hurry to act, nor was he ready to listen to Sun. In an interview with the British Consul, Sun described his
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relationship with Chen - they "did not see eye to eye... [they] thrashed out their differences round the Council table which... they thumped."

To arrange the finance of the new Government, Sun decided to reorganize the province's currency. The new policy was a total abolition of the existing currency and the introduction of a brand new currency under a new government bank. Originally, the new bank was to have had a reserve of $10,000,000, but it turned out that the Canton government could only put up 30% of the original amount. As a government bank, it had the right to issue new currency, to control the treasury and the salt gabelle in Guangdong. The crucial thing it lacked, as shall be seen, was credit worthiness. The merchant's prediction proved correct. In response, the chambers of Commerce wrote a joint letter to Sun, stating that "to cancel the existing currency (issued by the Bank of China in Canton) was equivalent to an act of sentencing them to the death penalty." Ending the letter, the chambers warned the government that "if the creditability of the Government was shattered [by this incident], the new notes issued by the Provincial Bank of Guangdong may suffer too." The brand new currency issued by the new government bank, amounting to $1,500,000, depreciated sharply once it began circulation.

It was in March 1921 that Chen Jiongming secretly approached "the leading Chinese merchants in Hong Kong," requesting them to form into an advisory council for the Guangdong Government, which was responsible for giving advice on the "administration of the province in relation to civil and financial matters."

**

Coinciding with Chen's move, it was Liu Zhubo who submitted a confidential report to the Governor of Hong Kong on a scheme to finance a new government in Canton - "the object of the proposed organization was to finance Chen Ch'iung-ming (Chen Jiongming) and enable him to sever [his] connection with Sun Yat-sen." According to Liu Zhubo's proposal, this new Canton government was to be modelled "after the form of government of Hong Kong" under the supervision of the Cantonese merchants. In Liu's words:

The Political ship of Canton - officiated, manned and navigated as it now is - is bound to strike rock... what the Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and Canton should do, and do at once, is to prepare and
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equip another ship for their own salvage purposes

Liu emphasised that all the influential Cantonese merchants agreed with him - "at the request of 100 odd men in Hong Kong", a merchant's society was formed “to protect their properties and industries in Canton". "For these men cannot afford to sit tight and see their interests seriously impaired by unscrupulous or theory-laden politicians.”

The Governor was obviously impressed by the scheme. He passed the scheme immediately to the British Consul in Canton, and thence to the British Consul in Beijing. He also informed London that Liu Zhubo was requested by Chen Jiongming to organize an Advisory Committee for the Canton Government. This committee was modelled after the Legislative Council in Hong Kong and would “possess the power of the executive Council" for the new Canton government.

For this proposed co-operation, Liu Zhubo planned a three-day trip to Canton in March 1921. On this trip, he submitted a six-page report to the Governor of Hong Kong. During his stay in Canton, Liu recorded that - while Sun Yat-sen and Wu Tangfing gave him little attention, it was General Chen Jiongming who, according to Liu, "accompanied me whenever I went". While "the veteran Doctor Wu discoursed on spiritualism... the redoubtable Doctor Sun gave a dissertation... on what appeared to be a form of communism", it was General Chen that discussed in secrecy with Liu on the scheme of a proposed new government.

The meeting ended with the agreement that Liu's son would be appointed member of the Executive Council for the new government "so things could be done in his name". Liu Zhubo, as well as the Governor of Hong Kong, however, doubted the leadership qualities of Chen Jiongming who was "neither by birth nor by temperament fit to be the representative of Kwangtung (Guangdong)". When the Governor suggested Liang Shiyi, the "ablest Cantonese of whom I [he] had recognized", Liu replied that "he was aiming at far greater things than a provincial Governorship".

Unsatisfactory as Chen Jiongming's leadership quality was, Liu Zhubo went to great lengths in his report to impress the Governor that all the important merchants in Canton were "inducing" him not to drop

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negotiations with Chen Jiongming as “Canton needs the salvage of a large and united body of influential men" and they all "begged me [Lu] to form the Merchants' Association at once”. "All urging me not to leave things as they were", emphasised Liu, and they were "offering to support whole-heartedly the scheme of government that I might propose"

Immediately after Liu's return to Hong Kong in late March, Liu Zhubo announced an organizational charter for a "Business Maintenance Committee". This committee was to raise a loan of $3,000,000 for the new Canton Government. To put up the sum, Liu proposed two methods to recruit adequate subscribers. The committee would either include a membership of 300 merchants with subscription fee of $10,000 or a membership of 30,000 with a subscription fee of $100. This charter was actually published and distributed in Canton and Hong Kong

With everything in place, Chen Jiongming broke with Sun Yat-sen in June 1922. During the incident, Sun's residence was bombarded. Sun fled to a gunboat and, from Hong Kong, he escaped to Shanghai

Chen Jiongming's co-operation with the Hong Kong merchants, however, proved to be a very short one. Sun returned to Canton in January 1923 with the military support of the Yunnanese and the financial support of the Siyi men from Hong Kong

Back in Canton, Sun faced the familiar problem of trying to organize a government without adequate money and with no real command over military forces. To prevent the guest armies from mutiny, Sun had to provide a daily maintenance expense of $20,000 to $30,000 to the armies. Added to this problem was Sun's inability to collect tax in the province. Almost all the existing organizations for tax collection were non-functioning in the face of the guest armies who divided Guangdong into spheres of influence.

Immediately upon his return, Sun called for a meeting with the merchants in Hong Kong. Fifty overseas returned merchants in Hong Kong, led by Li Yutang, met Sun Yat-sen in the Cement Factory of Guangdong. In response to Sun's call for financial support, Li made a public speech.
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the death of his mother who had been defenestrated on orders from her husband, King Zhou, as punishment for bearing such a 'monster.' Yin Jiao was determined to destroy not only his father but also the Imperial Concubine, Da Ji, the Nine-tailed Fox Spirit and current royal favourite who had caused the death of Yin's mother by her calumnies. Yin was presented with two magic weapons by the Goddess Tian Fei, a gold club and a battle-axe, and after the final great battle between the forces of the declining, sinister and corrupt Shang dynasty and the victorious future Zhou dynasty at Wan Xian Chen, Yin Jiao fought first on the side of his father, King Zhou. Later, after switching sides and fighting for the good King Wu, he was unfortunately decapitated by a general during the battles having been sandwiched by the Buddha Randeng between two mountains. He was deified during the general deification at the end of the war by Jiang Ziya, the future Prime Minister of the new dynasty, on the authority of the Jade Emperor. Yin Jiao, at the end of the novel, having been sent by Heaven to bring dread calamity down on to King Zhou because of his blasphemies and evil ways, volunteered to be the executioner of his father and his father's concubine, Da Ji. He was proclaimed Prince Jingming and was rewarded by the Jade Emperor for his bravery and filial piety with the titles of Taisui, Marshal Yin and with the presidency of the Ministry of Time. In the novel, the full title of Yin Jiao, the younger son of the evil King Zhou of the Shang dynasty, is Dou Lei Taisui Yin Yuanshuai.

RC

and as one of the Twenty-four Heavenly Lords he is also referred to as Yin the Heavenly Lord (Yin Tianjun).

An entirely different story is given in another novel, the Shenyi Jing which tells of Jin Chong, the son of Pan Gu the creator of the world, who lived in the mountains of Shandong province. Jin was canonised as Taisui by Fu Xi, a primeval ruler and sage, the first of the three emperors of the legendary period, for his many good deeds and was made responsible to Heaven for supervising the activities of all the spirits and demons. Few Chinese would appear to know this story.

Doré, who refers to Taisui as the Patron of the Harvests, explains that Yin Jiao's baby name whilst living with He Xiangu was Jin Nazha. This adds further confusion to the legends surrounding Li Nazha [the Third Prince - San Taizi], a very popular deity who appears with great frequency in Chinese legends and fairy tales.
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